Air pollution claims one million lives per year in India: Study

The air quality in India has been deteriorating speedily since 2010, claims the State of Global Air 2017 report that was released by the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

This is not it, as per the report, close to a million people die every year due to the ill effects of air pollution in the country which is even worse than China.

IHME also stated that the rate of death and disability has curtailed down to more than 1% per year in India but the indicators slacked gradually between the years 2010 and 2015. The reason for this delay in improvement was associated with the rise in air pollution levels in the country.

Earlier also, Skymet Weather had reiterated the same fact. The deaths reduced from 165 in the year 1990 to 135 in 2010. Thereafter, the death rate remained almost stagnant from 2010 until 2015.

As compared with the other countries like Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh, the air quality of India is still on the better side. However, it is 50% worse than the neighboring country of China, twice worse than South Africa and five times worse than the United Kingdom.

There is no denying to the fact that the air quality of India and its subcontinent is deteriorating. One of the main causes for this are the human-induced factors like smoke from burning of farm residues, vehicles, and power plants.

Comparatively, air is polluted in most of the Middle East countries but that is due to the dust that penetrates over these regions from the desert.

As per the report, PM 2.5 is the fifth biggest killer in the world. The air pollution due to the combined particulate matter of fine atoms of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon dioxide contribute together to the PM2.5. This causes heart and respiratory diseases.

The deaths due to polluted air across the globe have increased 40% since 2015. Moreover, unlike the developed nations, polluted air affects the age group from 15-44 years.

Image Credit: Quartz

Any information taken from here should be credited to skymetweather.com

*We do not rent, share, or exchange our customers email addresses with anyone. We will not use these addresses for anything but this newsletter. If you choose not to receive email from us, you can use the unsubscribe link in the email, and we will happily remove your address from our email list.